Notice that I didn’t say Dems were being distracted by non-important things. What I’m saying is that some very important things are slipping by – and largely because Dems are afraid of being “obstructionist”. Hellfire and brimstone! Obstructionist is just what they need to be! If it weren’t for the obstructionist Winston Churchill, Britain might be engaged in an internal debate to give up the Deutschmark instead of clinging to the pound.

Everyone expects Antonin Scalia – the duck-hunting, Vice-Presidential boot-licker, to be the next Chief Justice. He may be. As much as I despise him, he’s got the credentials. So long as there is enough balance on the Court to drown out the extremism he spouts, it’s okay. But Sandra Day O’Connor is also rumored to be ready to retire. That means there may be two seats coming open in the next three years.

In fact, the only reason Cornyn looks moderate is because Texas is home to true nut-jobs like Rick Perry.

Of course, Republicans are covering their tracks early by claiming that it is Democrats who are politicizing the judicial nominee process. Excuse me, Mr. Mental Midget, but it isn’t the Democrats who are loading the nomination process with ideologues who put blind adherence to ideology above rule of law or – gasp – reality. Democrats are doing the only thing they can do – use Senate rules (the same rules Republicans approved) to slow down the process and try to bring enough public attention to the problem to get the President to back down.

There’s only one problem. This President doesn’t back down. He didn’t do it when lives were at stake over the invasion of Iraq. He doesn’t do it when soldiers come home dead and he won’t even meet the families of the soldiers he sent to die when their fallen loved-ones are repatriated to American soil. He won’t even do it when even the dullest second-grader knows his Social Security plan doesn’t have a shot in Hell.

My belief is that he just doesn’t care enough about anyone else but himself to do so. Changing your mind means that you put someone else’s well-being ahead of your own ideas. I haven’t seen a shred of that in the Bush Presidency. I don’t look for it in the judicial nomination process.

If I’m right about John Cornyn coveting the Supreme Court seat – before the seat is even cold – then we shouldn’t look for it from the Court for the next couple of decades, either.